Railroad Titles in Missouri

Overview

Title insurance companies are rarely, if ever, asked to insure titles to active railway lines which are typically preempted at many levels by federal law. Railroad Titles in the context of title insurance typically involves insuring title to land where rail lines once ran on land on easements or land owned in fee simple by railroad companies.

Fee Simple

If title could not be obtained through a deed or other conveyance of fee simple title from the owner of the land, insuring over an interest originally owned if fee simple by a railroad would normally require an action to quiet title based to ensure that title would be insurable. For railroads that have been inactive for several years, finding the current owner is often difficult because transfers in ownership are often done outside the public records through mergers and acquisitions of assets.

Easements

Missouri has quite a few cases on point, but most seem to indicate that once tracks have been removed from an easement owned by a railroad, the easement is considered to be abandoned regardless of intent. Mere non-use is not sufficient to demonstrate abandonment.

• Ball v. Gross, 565 S.W.2d 685 (Mo.App. 1978)
• Boyles v. Missouri Friends of Wabash Trace Nature Trail, Inc., 981 S.W.2d 644 (Mo.App. 1998)
• Knox County Stone v. Bellefontaine Quarry, 985 S.W.2d 356 (Mo.App. 1998)
• Strother v. Bootheel Rail Properties, Inc., 66 S.W.3d 751 (Mo.App. 2001)
• Kohler v. Bolinger,, 70 S.W.3d 616 (Mo.App. 2002)

Cross-References

• Missouri
• Abandonment in Missouri